The Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders were ten murders committed by Rajendra Jakkal, Dilip Sutar, Shantaram Kanhoji Jagtap and Munawar Harun Shah of

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

between January 1976 and March 1977. All the murderers were

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students at the Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya, Tilak Road, and were hanged for their crimes on 27 November 1983. The group had acquired a poor reputation on their college campus for robbery and drinking.

Timeline

16 January 1976 – Prakash Hegde

Prakash was a classmate of the killers at Abhinav. His father, Sundar Hegde, ran a small restaurant (Vishwa) behind Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya. The group hatched a plot to

kidnap In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...

Prakash for

ransom Ransom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or the sum of money involved in such a practice. When ransom means "payment", the word comes via Old French ''rançon'' from Latin ''re ...

. On 15 January 1976, the foursome and classmate Suhas Chandak picked up Prakash under false pretense and took him to Jakkal's tin shed on Karve Road. They forced him to write a note to his father saying that he was leaving home. On the night of 16 January 1976, they gagged him, took him to Peshwe Park, which is just meters from Hotel Vishwa. There they strangled him with a nylon rope, placed his body in an iron barrel, inserted some stones and dumped the barrel into the Park lake. The next day, they sent a ransom note to his father.

August 1976 – Kolhapur

The gang moved to the city of

Kolhapur Kolhapur () is a city on the banks of the Panchganga River in the southern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarter of the Kolhapur district. In, around 2 C.E. Kolapur's name was 'Kuntal'. Kolhapur is ...

in August 1976, but were unsuccessful when they targeted the house of a local businessman.

31 October 1976 – Joshi

Achyut Joshi, from Vijaynagar colony, was attacked on the night of 31 October. The group, brandishing knives, forced their way into his house. Joshi and his wife Usha were the only ones at home. After tying the couple's hands and legs, the four strangled Joshi with nylon rope and suffocated his wife. When the Joshi's teenage son, Anand arrived home, they stripped him naked and strangled him with nylon rope. The gang then stole several items, including a

mangalsutra A mangala sutra (), or thaali (ISO: ''tāḷi''), is a necklace that the groom ties around the bride's neck in the Indian subcontinent, in a ceremony called ''Mangalya Dharanam'' (). The necklace serves as a visual marker of status as a ma ...

, a watch and several thousand rupees.

22 November 1976 – Bafana

Yashomati Bafana's

bungalow A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is either single-story or has a second story built into a sloping roof (usually with dormer windows), and may be surrounded by wide verandas. The first house in England that was classified as a b ...

on Shankarseth Road was attacked on the evening of 22 November. However, Bafana and her two servants fought back and the assailants escaped by climbing a barbed-wire fence around the perimeter.

1 December 1976 – Abhyankar

On 1 December 1976 at around 8 pm, the group attacked the Smriti bungalow on Bhandarkar Road belonging to the Abhyankars. There were five people in the house: noted

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

scholar Kashinath Shastri Abhyankar (age 88); his wife Indirabai (age 76); their maid Sakubai Wagh (age 60), granddaughter Jui (age 20) and grandson Dhananjay (age 19). The four gained entrance by ringing the doorbell. When Dhananjay opened the door they stuffed his mouth with a ball of cloth, tied his hands and told him to direct them inside the house. The men killed each person by stuffing their mouths with a ball of cloth, tying their hands and legs and then strangling them with a

nylon Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers composed of polyamides ( repeating units linked by amide links).The polyamides may be aliphatic or semi-aromatic. Nylon is a silk-like thermoplastic, generally made from pet ...

rope. The granddaughter, Jui, was stripped naked and forced to direct them to the valuables in the house before she was killed.

23 March 1977 – Anil Gokhale

Anil Gokhale was the younger brother of a college friend, Jayant Gokhale. On the evening of 23 March 1977, Anil was supposed to meet his brother at the Alka Talkies and was offered a ride home by Jakkal on his

motorcycle A motorcycle (motorbike, bike, or trike (if three-wheeled)) is a two or three-wheeled motor vehicle Steering, steered by a Motorcycle handlebar, handlebar. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes: Long-distance ...

. He was taken to Jakkal's shed, and strangled with a nylon rope. His body was tied to an iron ladder, weighed down with boulders and dumped into the

Mula-Mutha River The Mula-Mutha is a river in India, formed by the confluence of the Mula and Mutha rivers in the city of Pune, which later meets the Bhima River, which itself later meets the Krishna River and finally emptying to the Bay of Bengal. The river ...

near Bund Garden.

Investigation

Assistant Commissioner of Police Madhusudan Hulyalkar led the investigation. On the evening of 24 March 1977, the body of Anil Gokhale surfaced near Yerwada. The police team, led by

Police Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia In Australian police forces, the rank of inspector is generally the ne ...

Manikrao Damame, noticed that the

ropes used to tie the body to the ladder were fastened in a manner identical to earlier murders. The police had initially thought the murders were a result of botched robberies, but were soon faced with the fact that they were following a group of serial killers. Cases like these were rare at that time in India, and the police began an intensive investigation to prevent additional deaths. When questioned by police, the four men contradicted each other about their movements in the city over the previous week. Satish Gore (a colleague) cracked under questioning, leaking information about Prakash Hegde's murder and the location of his body. The signatures of strangulation with nylon rope and a specific knot also helped police zero in on the culprits. Further confessions were made by another classmate, Suhas Chandak, who was a witness to the Hegde killing. The killers were apprehended on 30 March 1977.

Court case

Shamrao G. Samant, a senior criminal lawyer who had conducted many successful prosecutions for the state government, was appointed special public prosecutor for the trial. The case began on 15 May 1978 in

Pune district Pune district (Marathi pronunciation: uɳeː is the most populous district in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The district's population was 9,429,408 in the 2011 census, making it the fourth most populous district amongst India's 640 district ...

, lasting more than four months. On 28 September 1978, they were sentenced to death by Pune Sessions Court Judge Waman Narayan Bapat. Their sentences were confirmed by the

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

High Court on 6 April 1979, and their special leave petitions against their convictions and sentences were dismissed by the Supreme Court on 17 November 1980.

Appeal

After both the High Court and

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

s turned down their appeals, the accused approached the

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murm ...

for a

pardon A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...

. The pardon was not granted, and the four were hanged at

Yerwada Central Jail Yerwada Central Jail is a noted high-security prison in Yerwada, Pune in Maharashtra. This is the largest prison in the state of Maharashtra, and also one of the largest prisons in South Asia, housing over 5,000 prisoners (2017) spread over va ...

on 27 November 1983.

In popular culture

The serial murders have had a lasting impact on popular culture in India, spanning several decades. Some of the more notable pieces to stem from these events are: * ''Yes, I Am Guilty'' (1983) - A Marathi book written by Munawar Shah, one of the murderers. He was the youngest of the four members to commit the violent crimes, and wrote this autobiography while imprisoned. * '' Maaficha Sakshidar'' (1986) - A Marathi film starring

Nana Patekar Vishwanath Patekar (born 1 January 1951), better known as Nana Patekar, is an Indian actor, screenwriter, film maker, and a former Indian Territorial Army officer, mainly working in Hindi and Marathi cinema. He is regarded as one of the finest an ...

and

Mohan Gokhale Mohan Gokhale (7 November 1953 – 29 April 1999) was an Indian film, television and theater actor who has worked in art films such as '' Sparsh'', '' Bhavni Bhavai'' and '' Mirch Masala''. His father was a senior journalist and Editor of the w ...

. The film was based on the execution of the four students who were convicted of ten murders. Patekar played Rajendra Jakkal, in one of his earliest film roles. * '' Paanch'' (2003) - A film directed by

Anurag Kashyap Anurag Kashyap (born 10 September 1972) is an Indian filmmaker and actor known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of several accolades, including four Filmfare Awards. For his contributions to film, the Government of France awa ...

. Kashyap's film is "loosely" based on the serial murders, and was never given a theatrical or home-video release. The

Central Board of Film Certification The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is a statutory film-certification body in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India. It is tasked with "regulating the public exhibition of films under the provision ...

objected to the film's violence, its depiction of drug abuse, and profanity. However, the film was later screened at several film festivals. * ''November 27'' (2020) - A play by actor-writer

Naren Weiss Naren Weiss (born March 15, 1991) is an actor, playwright, and former model. He played Osama bin Laden in Kamal Haasan's film on terrorism '' Vishwaroopam'', Dekker in the ABC series ''Deception'', and is known for his work in theatre in Indi ...

. The play was later published in ''Deepak and Raj: Two Indian Plays'', which went on to reach #1 on

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

's playwriting list for 2020. In addition to these books and films, the Joshi-Abhyankar serial murders have also been featured in episodes of true crime TV series such as ''

Savdhaan India ''Savdhaan India – India Fights Back'' ( ''Attention India! – India Fights Back'') is an Indian Hindi-language crime show aired by Star Bharat. The series is hosted by Ashutosh Rana, Tisca Chopra, Sushant Singh, Gaurav Chopra, Mohnish Be ...

'' (2012) and '' Crime Patrol'' (2015).